BEAUMONT — Oscar Wyatt wore just a light windbreaker Wednesday morning as he stepped from the back seat of a black Cadillac into a chilly north wind.

It hardly mattered, though. He was just steps away from the entrance to the minimum security prison camp where he began serving a one-year sentence on a conspiracy charge.

The 83-year-old oilman, known for his hard-nosed tactics and ability to turn a profit, arrived at the prison at 11:52 a.m. His wife, Lynn, sat beside him in the sedan, wearing sunglasses and a thin neck scarf.

She stayed in the car as Wyatt's lawyer, Carl Parker, escorted him inside the prison.

Wyatt pleaded guilty in October to a single count of conspiring to make illegal payments for Iraqi oil under the United Nations Oil-for-Food program.

The one-year sentence was well below the range for the offense under federal guidelines, and the sentencing judge said he was moved by letters from prominent and ordinary people attesting to Wyatt's generosity.

Wyatt, the founder of Houston-based Coastal Corp., which is now owned by El Paso Corp., was accused of funneling millions in illegal surcharges to Saddam Hussein's regime to buy Iraqi crude under the Oil-for-Food program.

Three weeks into his trial in the fall, he pleaded guilty to the one count and agreed to forfeit $11 million.

Parker said the check-in at the prison went smoothly and that his client was "resolved and resigned to getting it done."

"I still don't think he should have to, but they wanted to make an example of someone and he was it," Parker said of Wyatt serving time.

Wyatt can't tend to his business, NuCoastal Corp., while in prison, but Parker said Wyatt plans to read and keep up with professional trade journals so he'll be ready to get back to work when he's released.

"A lot of us told him this is either something he could obsess over or something he could make constructive," Parker said. "I think he's resolved to make the most of it."

The camp in Beaumont — Wyatt's birthplace — is just one part of the federal complex, which also includes low-, medium- and high-security prisons, all arranged around a circular drive.

The prison is bordered by woods on one side, a few single-family homes and a BASF chemical plant on another. Just a few miles away is the site where the famed Spindletop gusher blew in 1901, the symbolic beginning of the modern Texas oil business.

The camps typically house inmates nearing release or with short sentences. The Beaumont camp has housed former Enron executives caught up in prosecutions relating to the energy company's collapse. They include former Treasurer Ben Glisan, former finance executive Dan Boyle and former broadband division CEO Ken Rice — who is still there, according to the Bureau of Prisons Web site.

Camps are often linked to maximum-security prisons because the minimum-security inmates do maintenance work, such as landscaping, that maximum-security inmates aren't allowed outside to do.

Most prison camps have open barracks with rows of bunk beds, Billingsley said. A typical daily schedule might include a 6 a.m. wake up, 6:30 breakfast and 7:30 beginning of work detail. Work ends around 3:30 p.m., and 11:30 p.m. is lights-out, she said.

All inmates are required to work if they're physically able. The work at Beaumont involves basic maintenance and operations of the complex, Billingsley said. Inmate wages begin at 12 cents per hour and can increase to 40 cents.

The Beaumont camp was buzzing with activity by 8 a.m. Wednesday. The sky was clear and temperatures were in the low 40s as staff members arrived for work.

Inmates in green jackets, pants and knit caps raked and swept the grounds. A number of them walked alone or in pairs, unaccompanied by guards, along the roads to the other facilities in the sprawling prison complex. Most headed toward the maximum security unit about a half-mile from their bunkhouse.

Throughout the morning, the facility was busy with delivery trucks, laundry trucks, forklifts and golf carts, some driven by inmates, others by prison employees.

Like other inmates, Wyatt will be allowed 300 minutes of outgoing phone calls per month, paid on a debit system. He can get at least four hours per month for visitors, allowed on Saturdays, Sundays and holidays.

Before Christmas, Wyatt said he was prepared to do the time.

"After spending two years in the Pacific in a tent, I don't think that will be a problem," he told the Chronicle, referring to his service as a military pilot during World War II.

He could be home by Thanksgiving, since up to 47 days could be shaved off his sentence for good conduct, and he could spend the last 30 days in a halfway house, prison officials have said.

At least one inmate got his freedom Wednesday.

Several hours before Wyatt arrived, a car pulled into the visitor parking lot at the camp. A car door flew open and a young woman bolted out, shrieking happily as she ran toward a man leaving the camp with his arms full of boxes.